[maverick] live USB created usb-creator-gtk won't boot

[Delan Azabani]

I created a live USB using usb-creator-gtk on Maverick and it won't boot.

ISO used: ubuntu-10.04-desktop-amd64.iso
ISO used: ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso
usb-creator-gtk 0.2.23
syslinux 2:4.01+dfsg-3ubuntu1

On the boot process all I see is:

SYSLINUX 4.01 debian-20100714 EDD Copyright (C) 1994-2010 H. Peter Anvin et al
Unknown keyword in configuration file: gfxboot
boot:
vesamenu.c32: not a COM32R image

The last two lines continue to output again and again every few seconds.

[Vallery Lancey (muscovy)]

There's currently a bug where pre-Maverick USB creators have similar problems when making a Maverick USB. I think this bug is the reverse of that.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/615676

[Vallery Lancey (muscovy)]

Sorry, this link is the original bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/syslinux/+bug/608382

[Monkey (monkey-libre)]

I´ve assigned this bug to the usb-creator package.
Thank You for making Ubuntu better.

[Kenny Strawn (realkstrawn93)]

This appears to be a problem with Syslinux, not USB Creator, as I had the same problem, downgraded USB Creator, and the problem didn't go away.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

This is the change log of syslinux 4.02 which makes me think that version might fix this bug.

SYSLINUX: correctly handle the case where the -d option is specified with a non-absolute path, i.e. syslinux -d syslinux instead of syslinux -d /syslinux.
ISOLINUX: recognize the directory names /boot/syslinux and /syslinux, and the filename syslinux.cfg in addition to the isolinux-specific names. Thus, syslinux.cfg is now a generic name, whereas isolinux.cfg or extlinux.conf is specific to different derivatives.
chain.c32: support setting alternate config filename for stage2 of GRUB Legacy (Gert Hulselmans).
whichsys.c32: execute a specific command, based on the Syslinux bootloader variant (Gert Hulselmans).
lua.c32: a lot of new bindings added to the "syslinux" namespace: VESA, PCI, DMI, kernel loading (Marcel Ritter).
btrfs: print a comprehensive error message if compressed or encrypted files are encountered (neither is currently supported.)
SYSLINUX: mtools installer: honor TMPDIR, error out on disk full.
Handle fallbacks from EDD to CHS, to deal with systems which announce EDD support but don't actually have it.
SYSLINUX: the mtools, DOS and win32 installers now use the new command line options.
PXELINUX: fix the use of IP addresses in TFTP :: or tftp:// host syntax.
SYSLINUX: experimental Win64 installer (syslinux64.exe).

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

I think this bug is caused by our patch in debian/patches dir:

Reasons: it works fine with unetbootin but if you delete syslinux.cfg in the root dir of the flash and also rename isolinux dir to syslinux and isolinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg then you get the same problem as with usb-creator-gtk.

[Stuart Langridge (sil)]

From http://my.opera.com/toman/blog/setting-up-squeezebox-server-on-new-hardware:
After some fiddling around with the syslinux config files and still not getting it to boot properly, I found a deceptively simple workaround for this: Just type "help" on the BOOT prompt, and when you get the help menu, just hit enter. The system will now boot!

Confirmed that this also works for me when booting a USB stick created by 10.10's USB creator.

[Leo Arias (elopio)]

Thanks for the workaround Stuart.
*hug*.

[Alejandro Cuervo (a-cuervo)]

This needs to be addressed before 10.10 final in 10 days.

[Jeroen Hooyberghs (jeroen-linux)]

Issue still exists after final release of 10.10.

[Evan (ev)]

From the release notes:
"It is not possible to create Ubuntu 10.04 USB disks from the Startup Disk Creator in Ubuntu 10.10 due to a backwards incompatibility in the syslinux program."

Please read the release notes. They're there for your benefit.

[Christoph Langner (chrissss)]

I can confirm that the workaround of Stuart Langridge in comment #7 works. Just enter "help" and hit return.

[Jon Loldrup (loldrup)]

I managed to get ubuntu 10.04 back on my computer. The aid was to create the usb boot stick from a ubuntu 10.04 computer instead of my companion ubuntu 10.10 computer.

Quote from:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MaverickMeerkat/ReleaseNotes#Common%20Desktop%20Applications

"It is not possible to create Ubuntu 10.04 USB disks from the Startup Disk Creator in Ubuntu 10.10 due to a backwards incompatibility in the syslinux program."

[sr_guy (kgoerbig-gmail)]

I imaged 10.10 with remastersys, used usb-creator-gtk within 10.10 to write the image to usb, and ran into the same boot error, so this isn't limited to creating usb drives for 10.04 that generate thiis error

[aaron (aaron-zareason)]

This is not a duplicate of 645818. I'm using 10.10 to make a 10.10 flash drive and I get this error message every time.

[Mikele (mikilion)]

The problem is incompatibility between Syslinux of Ubuntu Maverick and vesamenu.c32 of Ubuntu Lucid as reported here:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=662557

Try replacing the file vesamenu.c32 on the USB disk drive with that one "/usr/lib/syslinux/vesamenu.c32" of Ubuntu Maverick system or use UNetbootin than works fine.

[Raviprakash Ramanujam (ravi87)]

Had the same problem when I used the Startup Disk Creator on Ubuntu 11.04.
Temp fix: I can boot in by typing "live" in the boot prompt!

[Christoph Kuhr (christoph-kuhr)]

Typing 'live' when promted with boot, works for linux mint 11 katya, created with ubuntu maverick, fine as well.

[Tomo Kutle (tkutlesa)]

This issue still exists in 11.10